Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

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mastor3lf
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Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by mastor3lf »

I'm not suggesting that we rip Dungeons and Dragons copyrighted material. I just want to say that first of all.

However this is a free game, and noone is trying to call it their own. I'm sure that everyone will agree the Dungeons and Dragons battle system is a time tested masterpiece.

I would love to see a Mod for Wesnoth going in the direction of the Dungeons and Dragons mini's Rule set and game play style.

I'd love to build an army prior to battle, just like in real minis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_& ... tures_Game

The graphics of Wesnoth itself doesnt need to change. I've discussed this with players online who agree that Mini's battles can be achieved using hexagons.

If we don't want to copy DnD monsters and stats then we need to make our own, and scale them fairly using the point system (the tough part)
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by irrevenant »

I'm not really sure what you're suggesting.

Are you suggesting a mode where the players purchase armies with points prior to play? That probably wouldn't be too hard to do - The easiest way is probably to have a map with no villages, and have huge castles that go away at the end of the first turn (via WML). Obviously you'd need fog on, though.

There are more sophisticated methods of doing it via WML too.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by Ken_Oh »

This is a pretty interesting idea, if you ask me.

You could easily make the first turn just 'not count' by having your leader be some 0 movement unit, and then make a recruitment system where you right-click to place units from your faction on your side of the board, which costs just like recruiting does. You could either leave your leader or take him out and make it so you just have to destroy all of the enemy units to win.

Anyway, mastor3lf, while the idea is kind of cool, no one is going to do it for you. If you want to see it in the game (and it wouldn't be that hard to do), it's up to you to make it. If you have questions, others will answer anything specific, but be sure to have done your own work first before asking for anyone else. I'm telling you this because I like the idea and hope you do make it.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by zookeeper »

mastor3lf wrote:I'd love to build an army prior to battle, just like in real minis.
Well, that wouldn't really be a problem to do. Basically it'd work a lot like the PickYourRecruits Era. Nothing preventing one from doing that.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by CarpeGuitarrem »

How does the combat system differ from regular D&D combat? Because that combat seems much more complex than Wesnoth, and obviously more RPG-ish.
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Aethaeryn
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by Aethaeryn »

irrevenant wrote:Are you suggesting a mode where the players purchase armies with points prior to play? That probably wouldn't be too hard to do - The easiest way is probably to have a map with no villages, and have huge castles that go away at the end of the first turn (via WML). Obviously you'd need fog on, though.
Well, I'd actually say that the castles shouldn't go away but rather that a script turns all keeps into a regular castle to prevent recruiting after the first turn. That way the castles can be used for strategic advantages. I'd also say that the village gold should be set to 0, but there should still be villages for healing and strategic purposes - otherwise healerless factions get a disadvantage.
Ken Oh wrote:You could easily make the first turn just 'not count' by having your leader be some 0 movement unit, and then make a recruitment system where you right-click to place units from your faction on your side of the board, which costs just like recruiting does. You could either leave your leader or take him out and make it so you just have to destroy all of the enemy units to win.
I'd say that the best way of doing it is that the leader simply regains full MP (his MP is simply 0ed at the start of your first turn), but making it to kill all of the enemy units, not just the leader. The leader then becomes a strategic advantage but not something you have to defend. Of course, if you lose your leader you just gave the enemy 16xp and lost a strong (and upkeep-free, but gold doesn't count unless there's other uses) unit.
Ken Oh wrote:Anyway, mastor3lf, while the idea is kind of cool, no one is going to do it for you. If you want to see it in the game (and it wouldn't be that hard to do), it's up to you to make it. If you have questions, others will answer anything specific, but be sure to have done your own work first before asking for anyone else. I'm telling you this because I like the idea and hope you do make it.
Actually, I like the idea enough of a first-turn-only-recruit-system that I'd do it myself if you (mastor3lf) don't. The only problem is that I'd probably do it in a simplified approach different than what you would do, probably focusing on recruiting on the first turn only and making balanced maps for the era rather than making a D&D clone.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by jb »

I'm sure that everyone will agree the Dungeons and Dragons battle system is a time tested masterpiece.
Really?

It's certainly time tested, but hardly a masterpiece. I hate the D&D battle system.

It uses an awkward chance to hit system based in 5% intervals (d20) in which armor and Dexterity dramatically alters the base % (but not combined), as well as the attacker's skill.... It's a complicated nightmare to compute, and all this just to see if you hit or not.

THEN if you do happen to hit you get to roll silly damage amounts, which are also random based on weapon type, but also improved/decreased based on stats such as strength. Somehow a level 1 fighter can die from a single hit, but mysteriously, after 4 levels of advancement, that fighter CAN'T be killed by the same sword that until he's been hit 3-4 times.

I prefer simply systems. I don't mind complicated systems if they are at least realistic, but combat is almost comic book style in it's silliness.

At least a system like Shadowrun, which is also overly complicated, remains somewhat realistic in that a single bullet has the potential to kill you no matter how much you've advanced.
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CarpeGuitarrem
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by CarpeGuitarrem »

jb wrote:
I'm sure that everyone will agree the Dungeons and Dragons battle system is a time tested masterpiece.
Really?

It's certainly time tested, but hardly a masterpiece. I hate the D&D battle system.

It uses an awkward chance to hit system based in 5% intervals (d20) in which armor and Dexterity dramatically alters the base % (but not combined), as well as the attacker's skill.... It's a complicated nightmare to compute, and all this just to see if you hit or not.

THEN if you do happen to hit you get to roll silly damage amounts, which are also random based on weapon type, but also improved/decreased based on stats such as strength. Somehow a level 1 fighter can die from a single hit, but mysteriously, after 4 levels of advancement, that fighter CAN'T be killed by the same sword that until he's been hit 3-4 times.

I prefer simply systems. I don't mind complicated systems if they are at least realistic, but combat is almost comic book style in it's silliness.

At least a system like Shadowrun, which is also overly complicated, remains somewhat realistic in that a single bullet has the potential to kill you no matter how much you've advanced.
I'm not positive, but it looks like he was talking about a different sort of combat system, not the one used for Roleplay.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by peet »

mastor3lf wrote:I'm sure that everyone will agree the Dungeons and Dragons battle system is a time tested masterpiece.
I know a lot of figurine gamers, and I don't know anyone who would agree with this statement. Nobody uses "Battlesystem" if there is another option. Even Warhammer is a better system. For god's sake, it uses a CRT with 11 columns and 37 rows. Talk about ancient! No game designer nowadays makes a game that uses a CRT if they want to be taken seriously.

You may as well try CHAINMAIL if you can find a copy. It is the game that D&D was originally based on, but it is a miniatures wargame. It is much more elegant than Battlesystem.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8193

However, the idea of buying armies in advance with "points" is common to many figurine games, and was not unique to, nor invented by "Battlesystem."
CarpeGuitarrem wrote:I'm not positive, but it looks like he was talking about a different sort of combat system, not the one used for Roleplay.
Actually, the D&D "Battlesystem" used for large scale battles is directly based on the roleplaying system. It "averages out" the swings that each character within a unit would make to figure out how many hit dice of damage the unit will do in total. It still uses D&D stats like Armour Class, Hit Dice, and THACO. It's meant to be fully compatible with D&D.

Here's links to what he is talking about:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11187
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/31302
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/10688

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Last edited by peet on May 20th, 2008, 5:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
mastor3lf
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by mastor3lf »

Yeah, Mini's differ greatly to the RPG side of DnD. It's simplified.

They have designed it so that you only need a single D20 die to play. however I have still used damage dice for fun sometimes.

You move around using each characters specific movement modifier. Choose an action roll to hit, (unless it's a spell) and the damage is on the card.

The fun of mini's is first of all building a well balanced squad. Then also moving strategically as a group.

In mini's you go off a single point on the map called an 'assembly tile' unless I'm mistaken.

The players roll off initiative at the start of a 'round' then add their initiative modifier which is based of their squad leaders level.

The winner decides who they'd like to go first.

Players get to move 2 characters of their choice. Then the opposition gets to move 2. If there are more than 2 players, you follow initiative roll order.

If one team has 10 players, and the other team has 5. Then the team with 10 gets to move the remaining guys all at once.

So: ('A' team has 4 characters, 'B' team has 6)

Turn 1: 'A' rolls (initiative 9+3), B rolls (initiative 2+1) 'A' chooses to move his Hextor, and Wraith off the assembly tile. 'B' chooses to move his Treant and Elven archer.
Turn 2: 'A' moves out his Warduke and his Archmage. 'B' moves out his 4 dire wolves.
Turn 3: Players Re-roll initiative, winner goes first. (The first characters to go off in this round are the choice of the players. for Example, 2 of the 4 direwolves could go again.)

I'd like to work with someone who knows how to program. I've got ideas, and I can help make models but I can't program anything to save my life.
Last edited by mastor3lf on May 20th, 2008, 5:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by mastor3lf »

Close, but no...
That is the old version.

Here's an example of the new character cards.

http://www.maxminis.com/Portals/0/NTFor ... adyvol.jpg

and here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mi/20040520b

and the simple rule book:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/War_Drums_QS.zip
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by Edward V Riley »

I have to agree that the D&D battle system is far from perfect. It just gets more and more convoluted every single time they advance to a new edition. I'm still shaking my head on Sorceror's having a Touch/Ranged attack to choose from in feats....Touch...ranged....I just can't get it clear in my mind. There are countless other examples of it's failing, mostly since TSR was bought by Disney.

The pick and choose method of having a standing army ready to go does have some merit, making for at least quicker first turns in multiplayer. I liken it to "deck building" from games like Magic and even Pokemon. Your army will be tweaked here and there OUTSIDE of the game.

The thing is, this could be just the thing for a Massive army type campaign. A campaign where you take your army as far as it can go, maybe to conquer an empire. Maybe to emulate Napoleanic wars. Maybe to emulate ANY war in history. All it would take is accurate terrain models and time.
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mastor3lf
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by mastor3lf »

Edward V Riley wrote:I have to agree that the D&D battle system is far from perfect.

I agree that in its entirety, and looking at the little details on those cards. There's a reason why no automatic simulations of this battle system exist. It's so detailed.

So I'd like to edit this threads direction slightly.

Which parts of the D&D mini's gameplay are enjoyable?

these are my personal opinions:

- Choosing balanced squads, that compliment each other. (as someone pointed out, this feature is similar to 'choose your recruits' era)
- Using an initiative roll to determine and jumble the turn order. (I still think that this would be a cool mod)
- Related to the point above is moving two characters at a time, instead of your entire team.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by mastor3lf »

Aethaeryn wrote:I like the idea enough of a first-turn-only-recruit-system that I'd do it myself if you (mastor3lf) don't. The only problem is that I'd probably do it in a simplified approach different than what you would do, probably focusing on recruiting on the first turn only and making balanced maps for the era rather than making a D&D clone.
How about choosing recruits as you join the map from the lobby, and also being able to save your choices, so as you find squad combinations that work well it's much quicker to bring them into action.


Aethaeryn, I have no problem with anyone implementing this idea. I only hoped that others would see potential in this as a mod, and I could help with the idea and development process.

Here are some other small details that I've been thinking about:

- like in D&D mini's there can only be one leader per squad, I think... and they have special leader bonus's and things that effect the group as a whole. That might be really cool. If your leader dies, then the bonus effects stops too.

- Areas of the map could actually offer specific bonus's like: protection fire, damage bonus's etc...
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons rule-set, and battle system.

Post by Aethaeryn »

mastor3lf wrote:How about choosing recruits as you join the map from the lobby, and also being able to save your choices, so as you find squad combinations that work well it's much quicker to bring them into action.
There's a difference between actually modding the game to change the interface so that you pick a whole squad at once and simply creating a new era where recruiting is limited. The simpler it is (at least to those who know WML), the more likely it'll work.
mastor3lf wrote:- like in D&D mini's there can only be one leader per squad, I think... and they have special leader bonus's and things that effect the group as a whole. That might be really cool. If your leader dies, then the bonus effects stops too.
Well, that could be interesting to adapt... Perhaps a penalty instead of a bonus (so that it's easier to implement). Basically, it makes you still defend your leader although 0 upkeep for leader is pointless and losing your leader isn't losing the game. One approach would be that once your leader dies, units have +10% xp (or 20%?) to promote and -5% HP. Not that horrible since I think the Quick trait lowers HP 5%, but it would still be a significant handicap.
mastor3lf wrote:Areas of the map could actually offer specific bonus's like: protection fire, damage bonus's etc...
That would depend on the map being made, not the era.

Don't be too ambitious with your ideas: a game style where you recruit at the start and only then (forces you to be more cautious and leads to quicker games) but you win by killing all units is one project, and a simple one. Changing the combat style is a very large project and probably would not get as many fans. Making maps with fancy tricks on them is usually easy (but map design and WML design are two separate skills), but can be advanced, and has been done countless times before.

Keep in mind that some things can be done with Wesnoth Markup Language (WML) to make scripted events relatively easy. Some things would have to be an actual mod. Some things would be WML to a particular map, even adding new terrain types. Some things would be WML to an era.
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